Boosting Organic Search

[sparkit]

Hi there,

I have been analysing the performance of my keywords through SEOMoz reports for some time now and I am trying to understand why I rank highly in certain keywords but do not receive any organic search visits for them?

My pages are tagged with the keyword(s) and my content including new content through my blog pushes the words.

These keywords are industry standards that I know people search for and are used by other companies and competitors and yet, my site does not receive many, if any, visits despite being ranked in the top 5 or 10.

Any help or advice would be much appreciated!

[KarlBantleman]

Hi Douglas,

Have you used the keyword tool to find the exact match figures? They may be industry standard terms but if the search volume is low then there may be less traffic than you think.

By highly, do you mean in positions 1-3? If so then it would point to the fact that there is little traffic to be gained and you would be best moving on to another keyword. if you are lower than that, it may be that the websites above you are very good at converting visits into sales.

[TomRayner]

Hi Douglas

It could be a number of things, but here's a few things to consider.

First of all, what do the keyword search results look like?  I know of a client who was ranking #2 for a keyword - but after position 1 there was a massive amount of local search results before position 2, which understandably soaked up a lot of the clicks.  I'd check your keywords for any local results and see if this could be affecting click through rate.

Second, top 5 is nice, but so often top 3 is even better (as it guarantees your website to appear above the fold, even if there are PPC ads).  I've seen clickthrough rate increase considerably from 5 to 3 and even 4 to 3, so this could be the reason.

Third, double check your keywords using the Google keywords tool.  The local search volume levels are of interest here - it is worth noting that they are an estimation from adwords, not organic search.  If the volumes are low, this might also explain a lack of clicks, although if you're going on industry standard keywords this may not be applicable.  The adwords tool has to be taken with a pinch of salt for organic estimations as well.

Finally, how do your title tags and meta descriptions appear?  Do they have compelling call to actions? They should - these are the primary windows that searches will make their first impression on your website.  If you're an ecommerce site, "free shipping" always attracts the attention.  Similarly, are you utilising rich snippets?  Can you use G+ authorship for the pages you're ranking for?

Just some food for thought and I hope this helps.

[sparkit]

Hi Karl thanks for your reply.

I think you are right in that there is little traffic despite the keyword being used by all other companies (General Spanish Course) but then that´s what is confusing as it is supposed to be the main search term for people looking for our type of product(s). I am in the process of testing variations on it to see if there is an improvement.

[Branden_S]

While many SEOs focus on rankings, looking at Click thru Rate is essential...(a major focus in PPC).

Create a compelling description that will get users to click on your link.  Test out different descriptions and measure CTR to evaluate what works best.  People like FREE stuff...so place "FREE Shipping" or some other compelling offer in the description.  Is this item on sale?  Did this item win an award?  Is it ranked "Best Product" by consumer reports?   You can also search for this product on Google...look at the PPC ads on top of SERP...do the PPC ads have any compelling text?  You can also change locations, to find different PPC ads.

[KarlBantleman]

Look at "spanish lessons" and "learn spanish" as these keywords may supply you with more traffic. They would be harder to rank for of course but over the long term would give you a more constant level of traffic.

[sparkit]

Those are the keywords we push in our google ppc and blogs but in terms of ranking we are still low - but then I guess this is where we have to put in the leg work and just keep putting relevant, quality content out there.